How to make large sizes design in illustrator

Question

I have a job to design the attached size windows stickers. Sizes are in ft and inches. There are partitions in the windows mentioned in the image.

There will be only text/vectors on stickers so I am using Illustrator. No issue with pixelated images.

1. Which document size should I select?

2. Should I create a whole design in a single document or divide it according to the image sizes, because it will paste separately?

3. I also need to send the letter (fonts) sizes to the print like the width or height of a text/image I am using, so they can make its stickers.

4. How can I provide a mockup of this design?

Answer 1

Speak to your printer. They may want you to design the artwork at 1/10th scale. This is common for large format works in Illustrator since there are limits on how large the artboard can physically be: I think currently just over 5m. Meanwhile, your design spans 74'7" = 22.722 metres. Not sure if Adobe has changed this recently to allow for larger document sizes as I'm still on CC 2018.

Obviously, if you split it into separate documents for each panel then 1:1 scale should be fine.

Answer 2

I suppose you could make an actual 1 to 1 scale model of your window layout. This seems excessive to me. I agree that communication with your printer about specific scaling requirements they might have is important prior to job setup so you can accommodate their needs before putting in too much work on the project.

Scalability in Illustrator can be cumbersome when working in our western style of feet and inches. The metric system is far easier in this regard- you just move the decimal place. CAD software is designed to work in scale. With Illustrator you have to do it pretty much on your own.

One way to approach this is to convert everything to inches only- so your first panel is 22'6" x 6'6". This would be (22.5 x 12)=270 inches wide x (6.5 x 12)=78 inches tall. At a 1/10th scale this would be 27 inches x 7.8 inches

I would actually make the scale 1"=1'. Your first panel would be 22.5 inches x 6.5 inches. It seems easy to keep track of things- for instance if you want lettering to be 1' tall you simply make it 1" tall. I would set it up all in one document with artboards sized to your window sizes (with or without the scale- your choice).

Here is a pic of my artboards (at 1"=1' scale)

To get the lettering or image sizes you can simply look in the transform panel with an object selected. Something whose W value is 16.54 inches and Y value is 5.32 inches in the transform panel would be 16.54 ' x 5.32' when printed. Unexpanded text is different in that the Transform Panel W and Y values will show larger than the actual text size (to account for acsenders and descenders). You can draw a throw away rectangle over the text and look at it's values to get an actual lettering height (once the text is expanded it will show it's size accurately in the Transform Panel).

For the mock up I just made a larger artboard behind the others and gave it a gradient fill. I am not sure how much this would need to embellished for your needs.

One thing which was not mentioned in your question is if these window panels are going to be all one piece (a 22'6"x 6'6" sticker ?) or if they will be smaller separate stickers that would be combined on one window. In that case I would still use this overall layout so you can see the whole project, then maybe create artboards for each different sticker and copy paste from the big layout for the individual print jobs.

The only other thing I would add is that it will be important to keep your file structure and organization sound. Use layers and sublayer organization so things are easy to find as you go along and also easy to lock or hide.

Answer 3

Like others have said, it's a good idea to ask the printer how they would like the file to be setup for print. If you do not know the printer, ask the client if they have a print supplier in mind.

1- Which document size should I select? > 2- Should I create a whole design in a single document or divide it according to the image sizes, because it will paste separately?

I would suggested either creating 1 document at 10% scale or splitting the design into 2 files, designing at 25% scale. The printer will likely use tiling software in their RIP program to separate the design for printing.

3- I also need to send the letter(fonts) sizes to the print like the width or height of a text/image I am using, So they can make its stickers.

This sounds like you just need to give details on how your document was setup. They would then be able to figure out the dimensions of the design in their RIP Printing program.

4- How can I provide a mockup of this design?

You could place your final design in a new document with arrows and measurements for each wall piece.